A Siegel Goes to Sea

 

Hello fellow landlubbers, I have returned from the sea. 

Twelve days ago, I left the dry familiar safety of terra firma, for the aqua firma unknown of the icy North Pacific. 

This was not my first nautical rodeo. In what seems another lifetime ago, I left the shores of Seattle for an adventure in the San Juan Islands. OK, it was a ferry boat to Orcas Island. And it wasn't really an adventure, one of my college roommates was getting married there. To be honest, between the ample cabernet and craft beers, and my decreasing ability to conjure up the past, I don't remember much of the affair, only that it was cold. 

And wet. 

And cold.

This was different. This was an 8 day journey from Vancouver, BC, north to Skagway (is there an Alaska town with a more Alaska-sounding name?) in the belly of the Tracy Arm Inlet. 

And though I'd like to be recounting swashbuckling tales on the high seas --like my father's 1984 outing in Nova Scotia on a 10 Day Survival Course with Outward Bound -- this was considerably tamer. 

Considerably.

The boat we were on was not a 93 foot long schooner, complete with barnacles and hammock-style sleeping quarters. Ours was less Robinson Crusoe and more F. Scott Fitzgerald, who would have felt completely at home aboard the SS Zaandam (is there a Dutch luxury liner with a more Dutch sounding name?) 

I went on a cruise.

In all my 66 years, I thought I'd go to my grave having never set foot aboard a cruise ship. And not just because I'm prone to sea sickness and had been traumatized by the Poseiden Adventure. 

Which is all the more ironic, given that my mother, at the tender age of 17, set sail on the Queen Elizabeth , with her 19 year old sister Mary. They left Glasgow for the teeming shores of America. Of course they were in steerage with none of the creature comforts found in the Zaandam's luxurious Veranda Suite.

I also had, what some might say, predisposed, "Westside elitist" notions, of what life aboard a luxury liner was like. But as I grow older and making a conscious effort to try new things (before I no longer can), I'm learning new things.

For example, I've learned there's nothing worse than being predisposed.

And I learned, hitting on 17 in Black Jack is never a good idea. 

Tomorrow: I get me Sea Legs.